The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy — and Why They Matter, by Marc Bekoff; foreword by Jane Goodall (New World Library 2007) QL785.27.B45 2007

With a nod to the movie Jerry Maguire, the book The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy — and Why They Matter by Marc Bekoff had me at the title. Then it lost me. I stuck with it and finished the work, but a few weeks later I am still puzzled by the audience and purpose of this book. Author Marc Bekoff should have been preaching to the choir – I need no convincing that animals deserve better treatment whether they are destined to be our dinner or our best friend – but instead he alienated a reader more than a little ready to buy into his argument, which makes me wonder where that leaves the people who need more convincing, and, equally if not more importantly, where that leaves the animals in their care.

Bekoff’s chosen area of study is the relatively new field of cognitive ethology, or the study of animal minds, and he assures his readers that general acceptance of his field is waxing while doubt about its scientific rigor is waning. That debate aside, The Emotional Lives of Animals does introduce the newcomer to current areas of inquiry and recent scientific discoveries in a non-technical and easy to read style. Getting people to think about how animals experience life certainly has value, but Bekoff starts to push the envelope in chapter three, “Beastly Passions: What Animals Feel.” He describes how chimpanzees sometimes dance at waterfalls and asks if this is simply joy at being alive or if this is where human spirituality originates. To support his query, he writes that “Jane Goodall wonders whether these dances are indicative of religious behavior, precursors of religious ritual” (Bekoff, 2007, p. 61). This may be a fascinating area of research for the cognitive ethologist, but as far as an argument for the betterment of animal welfare, Bekoff should have heeded his own words on page 27 when relating the utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham’s (1748-1842) famous quote: “‘The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?’” In his continuing discussion of Bentham on page 28, Bekoff makes the point that intelligence is not a prerequisite to suffering, but three pages prior to this statement he seems to be making the opposite claim. He presents the case of Jasper, a moon bear, who was catheterized and kept in a crush cage for fifteen years to increase his production of bile, which is used in traditional Chinese medicine. In describing Jasper’s terrible situation, he quotes a letter from Jill Robinson, the founder of Animals Asia, in which she calls Jasper not just wild but intelligent and refers to not just his physical but his mental agony as well (Bekoff, 2007, p. 25). So if Jasper was not “smarter than the average bear” would he have been less deserving of rescue?

The main flaw with this book is that Bekoff did not get the balance right. He gives too much space to anecdotal support for his thesis interspersed with guilt-inducing tales of animal abuse from scientific labs and the traditional medicines trade, and not enough space to facts and implications. In the five-page “Preface” to his book, Bekoff glosses over in one paragraph a December 2, 2006 article in New Scientist about emotions in whales: “Spindle cells, once thought to be unique to humans and other great apes, are believed to be important in processing emotions. And whales actually have more of them than humans do” (Bekoff, 2007, p. xix). The topic of mother love in Australian leeches on page 73 barely rates a complete paragraph, coming in at a mere four sentences, even though Bekoff states that this is the first known example of an invertebrate caring for its young. The title of the final chapter, “Ethical Choices: What We Do with What We Know”, might have one thinking that now Bekoff is going to outline a concrete and practical path for change, but again he is long on guilt and short on guidance. If a bare cage with a food bowl meets the minimum standards of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as Bekoff tells us on page 146, then he should also tell us how that compares to other national and international organizations and who we should contact at the NIH. If by 2012 the European Union has pledged to phase out wire battery cages for chickens and that in October 2006 Germany banned seal product as Bekoff tells us on page 150, then he should also tell us how the United States compares and who we can contact about it.

Worth a read for the paragraph on Australian leeches alone (who knew!), the references, endnotes and bibliography are useful tools for further research as well. If reasons are needed beyond “Can they suffer?” in order to start treating animals with more compassion, The Emotional Lives of Animals can provide them. But what is missing for Bekoff’s readers – those up in the choir and those who haven’t even made it to church yet – is concrete advice on any scale as to what they are supposed to do with this information beyond feeling either intellectual surprise or skeptical disbelief at the scientific discoveries and moral outrage at the tales of animal suffering.

Greta Wood

Other books to consider:

• Introduction to Animal Cognition by John M. Pearce.
  Call Number: QL785.P32 1987
• The Alex Studies: Cognitive and Communicative Abilities of Grey Parrots by Irene M. Pepperberg
  Call Number: QL696.P7 P46 1999
• Watership Down by Richard Adams.
  Call Number: PZ10.3.A197 Wat4
• When Elephants Weep by J. Moussaieff Masson.
  Call Number: QL785.27.M37 1996
  

Updated August 14, 2008